From left: Dan Bilzerian, Nick Fuentes, Sneako, Tristan Tate, and Andrew TateMother Jones; Zuma; Wikimedia
A number of prominent figures on the right and far right are once again engaged in energetic antisemitism; this time, Instagram personality Dan Bilzerian, a poker player and lifestyle influencer previously famous for posing with women on large boats, has climbed aboard. Bilzerian and two other masculinity influencers—accused human traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate—have increasingly pivoted to criticisms of Israel that promptly segue into antisemitic claims clearly rooted in the blood libel, a medieval conspiracy theory about Jews murdering Christians.
Bilzerian is grandiosely known as the “King of Instagram,” where he displays scenes of a lifestyle involving yachts, crowds of bikini-clad hangers-on, and exotic locales to 32 million followers. In the past few weeks, however, Bilzerian has been spouting wild conspiracies about the Israeli government, telling a podcaster that he believes it “knew about 9/11” (presumably in advance) and “had JFK assassinated.”
Last week Bilzerian was among those who shared a viral meme on Twitter/X claiming to show English translations of the Talmud, a foundational Jewish religious text, “proving” that it exists to justify the mistreatment and murder of non-Jews. These claims, which have been debunked many times over the last several centuries, seem to be largely sourced from antiquated antisemitic texts, like 1892’s The Talmud Unmasked. Besides being composed of outrageous lies—claiming, for instance, that Judaism permits the rape and murder of non-Jews—the meme cites a purported book of the Talmud that the American Jewish Committee identified as “altogether fictitious” in 1939.
“Antisemites trying to focus on the Talmud is almost as old as antisemitism gets,” explains Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, the social media editor of Chabad.org, the Judaism website run by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a branch of Orthodox Judaism. “You have places on the dark corners of the internet where people have compiled bits and pieces that are totally made up, or taken out of context. They have the same spelling mistakes and use made-up terms in Hebrew.”
The meme vastly oversimplifies what the Talmud is: an intricate text, composed of thousands of pages of summation of oral tradition, opinions from rabbis and sages, teachings, conversations and debates. While some observant Jews devote years to understanding its mysteries, antisemitic memes presume it is a literal rulebook by which modern-day Jews live, instead of a compilation of religious and ethical arguments written between the third and sixth centuries.
The Talmud is, Lightstone adds, written “in a language that isn’t accessible to the common person today.” Even at the time it was written, in a blend of Aramaic and Hebrew, it was “incomprehensible to the non-Jewish world,” making it even more attractive for antisemites looking to imbue it with meanings that would demonize Jews, and frame it, as Lightstone puts it, as “the things Jews don’t want you to see.”
Bilzerian isn’t alone among far-right influencers, where antisemitic rhetoric is on the rise as prominent conservatives like Candace Owens and Stew Peters make increasingly overt claims about Jewish people. While they are often cloaked in supposed critiques of the Israeli government’s invasion of Gaza, that isn’t always the case. Last week, for instance, Owens shared posts about Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was murdered in Georgia in 1915 by a lynch mob that claimed he was guilty of rape, a claim most historians dispute. She stated without evidence that Frank was related to the founder of a cult “which practiced ritualistic incest and pedophilia.” (Owens has previously displayed an obsession with Frankism, a long-dead Jewish heretical sect from the 1700s that practiced sexual rituals, but had nothing whatsoever to do with Leo Frank.)
Owens has been joined by the Tate brothers, who she interviewed in Romania last year about the trafficking allegations against them, and who recently sat down with her for interviews again. This week, the Tates were raided at their Romanian compound for the second time, this time reportedly over allegations of sex with a minor. Upon his release, Tate retweeted a post from white nationalist Nick Fuentes, which read, “Just 2 days after Andrew Tate said that ‘the Matrix’ is really just the Jewish mafia—his house was raided and he was arrested again.”
Other masculinity influencers, like Rumble personality Sneako, celebrated their release. “Welcome home,” he tweeted, tagging the Tates. “Tell the truth, whatever the cost.” Later the same day he added in another tweet that “The Matrix is Israel.”
Posting any one thing for too long—whether it’s misogynist screeds, pictures of women in swimwear, or Andrew Tate’s omnipresent photos of himself smoking cigars—can leave an audience feeling bored and prone to drifting away. For Andrew Tate and Bilzerian, focusing on Israel’s assaults on Gaza brings not only novelty, but an appearance of moral high ground that such influencers don’t typically get to assume; their antisemitism also provides a new enemy that could be, for instance, useful as the human trafficking case against the Tates moves forward.
Chabad, the movement that Lightstone is part of, encourages less-observant Jews to learn more about their religious traditions. And while he’s disgusted by the meme, he hopes it, and the people like Bilzerian spreading it, might push someone to take time to look into the actual text.
“The Torah and the Talmud is here to bring truth and light to the world,” he says. “All of this hate is darkness and distraction from that purpose.”
